145 Fun Facts About Us States

What is the capital city of California?

Sacramento became the capital in 1854 only after the legislature had tried three other towns; Benicia, the third, lasted barely a year.

What is the official state nickname of Florida?

The Sunshine State has been the official nickname since 1970, yet no part of the country has more thunderstorms: parts of the peninsula hear thunder on more than 80 days a year.

Which Kentucky city hosts the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs each May?

Louisville's race was founded in 1875 by Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr., grandson of the explorer William Clark, who modelled it on England's Epsom Derby after a visit there.

What is the capital of Rhode Island, the smallest US state by area?

Providence only became the sole capital in 1900; before that the legislature alternated its sessions with Newport, and earlier still it rotated among five towns.

Which US state is the largest by total area?

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by total area, encompassing 665,384 square miles.

Which state was the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution?

Delaware was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787.

Which giant cactus produces the white blossom that is Arizona's state flower?

Saguaro blossoms open at night and close by the next afternoon, so bats, birds and insects have less than a day to pollinate each one.

Which Great Lake lies farthest east, with New York as its only US state?

Lake Ontario is the last in the chain: the other four drain into it down the Niagara River, and it is the only Great Lake that Michigan never touches.

Which US state has the largest population?

California is the most populous state in the United States.

Which president is carved on Mount Rushmore alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln?

Theodore Roosevelt was sculptor Gutzon Borglum's choice to stand for the nation's development, for work such as the Panama Canal; the other three mark its birth, growth and preservation.

Which ice cream brand began in 1978 in a converted gas station in Burlington, Vermont?

Ben & Jerry's started as two friends with a single scoop shop; in 2000 the company was sold to the multinational Unilever for roughly $326 million.

The first shots of the Civil War were fired at which fort in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina?

Fort Sumter took some 3,000 shells over 34 hours, yet no one on either side was killed in the bombardment; the only deaths came from an accident during the surrender salute.

Which state is widely known by the nickname "The Lone Star State"?

The single star on the flag recalls its years as the independent Republic of Texas.

Which state capital is nicknamed the Mile High City?

Denver's official elevation is taken on the State Capitol steps, where the 13th step is marked as exactly one mile above sea level; earlier surveys had put the mark on other steps.

Which park, lying mostly in Wyoming, became the first national park in the United States in 1872?

Yellowstone was created while the region was still federal territory, so no state could run it; the US Army moved in from 1886 and guarded the park for three decades.

Which US state has the most electoral votes in presidential elections?

Its 54 electoral votes follow from having the largest population; from 1952 through 1988 the state went Republican in nine of ten elections.

Which state is widely known as the "Peach State"?

Georgia earned the nickname in the three decades after the Civil War, but by 2014 it ranked only third among peach-growing states.

Which state is home to the Great Salt Lake?

It is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and a remnant of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which once covered much of the state's west.

What is the capital of Pennsylvania?

Harrisburg has been the capital since 1812; the world heard of it in 1979, when the Three Mile Island plant nearby suffered the worst accident at a US nuclear power station.

Vermont produces about half of the United States' supply of which sweet product?

Maple syrup is boiled down from the sap of the sugar maple, Vermont's state tree, which needs a spell of real cold before the sap will run.

Which US state has the largest number of national parks?

California boasts the most national parks of any state, with nine, including Yosemite, Sequoia, and Death Valley.

Which hiking trail runs about 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine?

The Appalachian Trail was dreamed up in 1921 by forester Benton MacKaye and built by private citizens, who finished it in 1937; volunteers still maintain it.

Which lake in Oregon is the deepest in the United States?

Crater Lake fills the hollow left by a collapsed volcano; no rivers run in or out, so its famously clear water is nothing but rain and melted snow.

Kentucky distillers make about 95% of the world's supply of which spirit?

Bourbon has been made in Kentucky since the first settlers arrived in the late 1700s, many of them Scots and Scots-Irish farmers who brought their distilling skills with them.

Which New Jersey resort city built the world's first boardwalk in 1870?

Atlantic City laid its boardwalk so that hotel owners and the railroad could stop beachgoers tracking sand indoors; the first one was taken up at the end of each summer.

Which national park protects 1.5 million acres of wetland at the southern tip of Florida?

Everglades broke the mould in 1947: it was the first US national park created to protect wildlife and a fragile ecosystem rather than spectacular scenery.

What is New Hampshire's state motto, stamped on its license plates?

'Live Free or Die' comes from a toast that Revolutionary War general John Stark sent by letter in 1809, when he was too ill to attend a reunion of his old soldiers.

Which soft drink was invented by a pharmacist in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1886?

Coca-Cola was the work of pharmacist John Pemberton, who carried his syrup to Jacobs' Pharmacy in downtown Atlanta, where the first glass was poured at the soda fountain.

On which Hawaiian island is the state capital, Honolulu?

Oahu is home to about two-thirds of the state's residents as well as Honolulu and Pearl Harbor, though it is only the third-largest of the islands.

Which natural wonder gives Arizona its state nickname?

The Grand Canyon averages only about 10 miles across, yet the drive from the South Rim village round to the North Rim covers about 212 miles and takes four and a half hours.

Which Ohio city is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

Cleveland won the museum in 1986 after pledging public money and arguing that local disc jockey Alan Freed had popularised the phrase 'rock and roll'; it opened in 1995.

Which US state is known as the "Evergreen State"?

Washington has used the nickname since an 1890 booklet by Seattle real estate broker Charles Conover, yet it has never been made official: as of 2026 a Senate bill to adopt it had still not become law.

The Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States, lies within which two states?

Maryland and Virginia share a drowned river valley: the bay is the old bed of the Susquehanna, flooded as the sea rose, and deep troughs of the ancient river still run along its floor.

The view from which Colorado peak inspired the song 'America the Beautiful'?

Pikes Peak capped an 1893 summer trip for Katharine Lee Bates, a visiting English teacher in Colorado Springs; she wrote the poem behind the song after seeing the view from its summit.

Which university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded in 1636, is the oldest in the United States?

Harvard was created by a vote of the colony's legislature in 1636 and took its name three years later from its first benefactor, the Puritan minister John Harvard.

Which US state is known as the "Ocean State"?

The smallest state still has about 400 miles of coastline, and bays and inlets make up roughly 14% of its area.

Which sport did James Naismith invent in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1891 to keep his students busy indoors?

Basketball's first hoops were two peach baskets nailed up ten feet above the gym floor; because the bottoms were left in, someone had to fetch the ball out after every score.

Which US state borders both Mexico and the Pacific Ocean?

California borders the Mexican state of Baja California; Arizona and New Mexico also touch Mexico but have no coast, and Texas faces the Gulf.

Which five-mile bridge links Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas?

Mackinac Bridge replaced the ferries that had been the only link between the two peninsulas; when it opened in 1957 it was the world's longest suspension bridge between anchorages.

Which secret military base in the Nevada desert is at the heart of UFO conspiracy theories?

Area 51 was set up in 1955 to test the U-2 spy plane, and the CIA did not officially acknowledge the base until documents were declassified in 2013.

What was the first permanent English settlement in North America, founded in Virginia in 1607?

Jamestown nearly died in the 'Starving Time' winter of 1609-10; what saved the colony was tobacco, the cash crop John Rolfe introduced a few years later.

Which city, the largest in Wisconsin, was long the home of the Miller, Pabst and Schlitz breweries?

Milwaukee's German immigrants brought lager brewing with them, and new railroads let its brewers sell to booming Chicago; it grew into one of the largest brewing centres in the country.

The 630-foot Gateway Arch, the tallest monument in the United States, stands in which city?

St. Louis built the arch to mark its role as the starting point for settlers heading west; finished in 1965, it is more than twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Disneyland Park, the first Disney theme park, opened in 1955 in which state?

The original Disneyland Park opened in Anaheim, California, in 1955.

The tallest mountain in the contiguous US is located in which state?

Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the contiguous United States, is located in the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.

Which Canadian province lies directly north of Washington state?

British Columbia and the US were divided along the 49th parallel by a treaty of 1846, which ended a quarrel remembered for the slogan 'Fifty-four forty or fight'.

What is the capital of Alaska?

Juneau cannot be reached by road from the rest of the state or the continent, so everyone, lawmakers included, arrives by plane or ferry; it took over as capital from Sitka in 1906.

Which state's capital, Montpelier, is the least populous state capital in the United States?

Vermont chose Montpelier in 1805 for its central location and because townspeople offered land and money; with fewer than 9,000 residents it is the only state capital without a McDonald's.

Which is the only state with a single-house, unicameral legislature?

Nebraska voters made the switch in 1934, in the depths of the Depression, after Senator George Norris wore out two sets of tires campaigning for a cheaper, simpler one-house legislature.

Which state has the most counties, at 254?

The second-place state is Georgia with 159. Loving County, Texas, is the least populous county in the country.

Which state is divided into parishes instead of counties?

Louisiana's parishes go back to French and Spanish rule, when both colonial powers were officially Catholic and church districts marked out the territory; the legislature kept the word in 1807.

Which state has the smallest population, despite being the tenth-largest by area?

Wyoming is nicknamed the Equality State: in 1869, two decades before statehood, it became the first territory to give women the vote.

Which state was created in 1863 by counties that broke away from a Confederate state?

West Virginia was born when delegates from the western counties met at Wheeling in 1861, rejected secession and set up a rival pro-Union government; statehood followed two years later.

Which state became the 48th, and last of the contiguous states, on Valentine's Day 1912?

Arizona's first try was vetoed by President Taft, who objected to a clause letting voters recall judges; the territory cut the clause, won statehood, and then voted it straight back in.

Which state has the only non-rectangular state flag, a swallowtail burgee?

Ohio's swallowtail flag was designed by architect John Eisenmann for a 1901 exposition and adopted the next year; its 17 stars mark Ohio as the 17th state to join the Union.

Which state's flag features the British Union Jack in its corner?

Hawaii's flag dates from the Hawaiian Kingdom, whose first king, Kamehameha I, had British advisers and friendly ties with Britain; its eight stripes stand for the eight main islands.

The Mall of America, the largest shopping mall in the country, is in which state?

Minnesota's giant mall has no central heating: skylights, lights and the body heat of its shoppers keep it at about 70 degrees through the winter.

The geographic center of the contiguous 48 states lies near Lebanon, in which state?

Kansas got the honour in 1918, when government surveyors balanced a cardboard cutout of the 48 states on a point to find its centre; a tiny chapel now stands near the spot.

The Wright brothers made the first controlled, powered airplane flight in December 1903 on the windy Atlantic dunes of which state?

North Carolina's Outer Banks offered the strong, steady winds and soft sand the brothers wanted; their first flight covered just 120 feet and lasted 12 seconds.

Mammoth Cave, the longest known cave system in the world, lies beneath which state?

Kentucky's Mammoth Cave has more than 400 miles of mapped passages, and it jumped ahead in 1972 when cavers found the link joining it to the Flint Ridge system next door.

Which state has the lowest mean elevation of any state, at roughly 60 feet?

Its highest natural point, near Ebright Azimuth, is only about 448 feet above sea level. Florida has the lowest high point but a higher average.

Santa Fe, founded in 1610 and the oldest state capital in the US, is in which state?

New Mexico's capital has not been held without a break: in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 the Pueblo peoples drove the Spanish out, and they did not return for twelve years.

Which state, nicknamed the "Mother of Presidents", is the birthplace of eight US presidents?

Virginia supplied four of the first five presidents, and between them they held the office for 32 of the nation's first 36 years.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat in 1955 in Montgomery, the capital of which state?

Alabama's capital then saw a bus boycott that lasted more than a year, led by a 26-year-old local pastor named Martin Luther King Jr.

A 231 mph wind, a world record for six decades, was measured in 1934 atop Mount Washington in which state?

New Hampshire's summit observers clocked the gust on April 12, 1934; recording it so reliably helped secure the young observatory a permanent place on the mountain.

Which state grows about a third of all the potatoes in the United States?

Idaho's potatoes took off when irrigation canals opened up the Snake River Plain in the early 1900s; the light volcanic soil there suits them perfectly.

Which state is known as the Hawkeye State?

Iowa's nickname may honour the Sauk leader Black Hawk or borrow the scout Hawkeye from The Last of the Mohicans; either way, 1830s boosters such as a Burlington newspaper editor made it stick.

Which state borders eight others, tying the national record?

Tennessee is about 440 miles long but barely 110 wide, a ribbon stretched across the map that brushes eight neighbours; only one other state touches as many.

Pierre is the capital of which state?

South Dakota picked Pierre at statehood in 1889 because it sits near the centre of the state; the town had grown up across the river from Fort Pierre, an 1817 fur-trading post.

Carson City is the capital of which state?

Nevada's capital began as a stopover for wagon trains heading west and boomed after 1859, when the Comstock Lode silver strike drew miners to the hills nearby.

Which state's nickname refers to settlers who jumped the gun on the 1889 Land Rush?

Oklahoma's 'Sooners' slipped across the line before the official start to grab the best claims; the word began as an insult for cheats and ended up as the state's proud nickname.

Helena is the capital of which state?

Montana's capital began in 1864 when four prospectors, ready to give up, took 'one last chance' on a creek and struck gold; Last Chance Gulch is now its main street.

Which is the most densely populated state in the United States?

New Jersey is squeezed between two of the biggest cities in the East, and commuters to Manhattan and Philadelphia have filled it with suburbs rather than big cities of its own.

Which state is nicknamed the Constitution State for its Fundamental Orders of 1639?

Connecticut made the nickname official in 1959: some consider its Fundamental Orders the first written constitution.

Which state's name comes from an Ojibwe phrase meaning "great river"?

Mississippi is named for the river, whose name French explorers learned from Ojibwe speakers far to the north and carried downstream; the Ojibwe never lived in the state itself.

The 1957 Little Rock Nine school-integration crisis unfolded in which state?

Arkansas governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to keep the nine Black students out of Central High until President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to escort them in.

Which state was named in honor of the French-born wife of King Charles I?

Maryland was chartered in 1632 to the Calvert family as a refuge for persecuted English Catholics, and it took its name from the king's own Catholic queen, Henrietta Maria.

Which state's name honors the father of its Quaker founder rather than the man himself?

Pennsylvania, 'Penn's Woods', was granted to William Penn in 1681 to settle a debt the Crown owed his late father, Admiral Sir William Penn, and Charles II named it for the admiral.

Which state is nicknamed "America's Dairyland"?

Wisconsin turned to cows in the 1890s after its wheat boom failed; a University of Wisconsin professor's butterfat test then let creameries pay farmers by the quality of their milk.

Which state organizes its local government into boroughs rather than counties?

Much of the state lies in an Unorganized Borough with no county-level government at all. The only other county-less state uses parishes.

Which state runs the only state-owned bank in the United States from its capital, Bismarck?

North Dakota's bank was founded in 1919 by the farmers' Nonpartisan League, which wanted cheaper credit than out-of-state banks would give; all state funds are still deposited in it.

Which state's motto is the single word "Industry", symbolized by a beehive on its flag?

Mormon pioneers originally proposed a State of Deseret, a Book of Mormon word for honeybee. The beehive remains the state emblem.

Which state earned the nickname "Centennial State" by joining the Union in 1876?

Colorado had to wait for it: President Andrew Johnson twice vetoed statehood in the 1860s, arguing the territory had too few people, so admission slipped to the centennial year.

Which state is nicknamed for the palmetto logs that absorbed British cannon fire in 1776?

South Carolina's defenders built their fort on Sullivan's Island from palmetto logs, whose spongy wood soaked up British cannonballs instead of splintering; the tree has been a state emblem ever since.

Salem, not Portland, is the capital of which state?

Oregon moved its capital to Salem from Oregon City in the early 1850s, tried Corvallis for a few months in 1855, then came straight back.

Which state is nicknamed the "Empire State"?

New York's nickname is often traced to the first president, who called the state 'the seat of the Empire' in a 1785 letter, though nobody knows for certain who coined it.

Which state's official slogan is "Land of Lincoln"?

Illinois claims Lincoln though he was born elsewhere: he arrived as a young man, lived there for about thirty years as a lawyer and legislator, and left Springfield for the White House.

Which state's highest point is Hoosier Hill, a mere 1,257 feet above sea level?

Indiana's high point carries the state's own nickname, whose origin nobody knows; an 1833 poem, 'The Hoosier's Nest', is what made the name stick.

Lansing is the capital of which state?

Michigan moved its capital inland in 1847 for a more central site, and because Detroit, captured by the British in the War of 1812, sat uncomfortably close to Canada.

Lubec, the easternmost town in the contiguous United States, is in which state?

Maine's Lubec has the only bridge to Campobello Island, a piece of Canada with no road to the rest of its own country, so even its mail arrives by truck through the United States.

Roger Williams founded which state's capital in 1636 on land bought from local tribes?

Providence was the first settlement in North America with an explicitly secular government, after Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay.

Jefferson City is the capital of which state?

Missouri chose the site in 1821 and named the new town for Thomas Jefferson; Daniel Boone's son laid out the streets, and the government moved in five years later.

Which state was the first in the US to legalize same-sex marriage, in 2004?

Massachusetts acted on a 4-3 ruling by its highest court, which found that barring same-sex couples from marriage broke the state constitution; the first weddings followed on May 17, 2004.

Badwater Basin, the lowest and hottest place in North America, is in which state?

The Death Valley basin sits about 280 feet below sea level, yet Mount Whitney, the highest summit in the contiguous US, is under 90 miles away.

Tallahassee is the capital of which state?

It was picked in 1824 as a midpoint between the two main towns of the day, St. Augustine and Pensacola. Jacksonville is now the largest city.

From which country did the United States buy Alaska in 1867 for about two cents an acre?

Russia sold the territory for $7.2 million in a deal negotiated by Secretary of State William Seward.

Which dam on the Arizona–Nevada border holds back Lake Mead, the largest US reservoir?

Hoover Dam was officially called Boulder Dam from 1933 to 1947, after the Roosevelt administration dropped the former president's name.

Which Hawaiian capital is home to Iolani Palace, the only official royal residence in the United States?

Honolulu has been Hawaii's capital since 1845, when it was the seat of an independent kingdom rather than an American city.

Which highway, nicknamed the Mother Road, once ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, California?

Route 66 crossed eight states in 2,448 miles, and John Steinbeck popularized its nickname in The Grapes of Wrath.

Which tart citrus dessert did Florida lawmakers name the official state pie in 2006?

Key lime pie is named after small, aromatic Key limes, and a traditional filling is pale yellow, not green.

Which Washington volcano's May 1980 eruption was the most economically destructive in US history?

Mount St. Helens lost more than 1,300 feet of its summit in the blast, which left a mile-wide horseshoe-shaped crater.

Which capital of Georgia hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics, the centennial of the modern Games?

Atlanta was first known as Terminus, a railroad settlement, and much of it was burned by Sherman's army in 1864 before the March to the Sea.

Which word do Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia use in their full official names?

Commonwealth is purely a matter of style for the four states and carries no legal or political significance.

Which animal strides across California's flag, though none has been seen wild there since 1924?

The grizzly bear on one 1911 version of the flag is said to be modeled on Monarch, a captive caught in 1889 for William Randolph Hearst.

Which natural wonder straddling New York's border with Canada is a well-known honeymoon destination?

Niagara Falls is really three waterfalls, and its Horseshoe Falls is the most powerful in North America by flow rate.

Which Native American nation maintains the monument where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah meet?

Navajo parks staff run the Four Corners Monument, which marks the only point in the United States shared by four states.

Which medieval sport, still held as ring tournaments, has been Maryland's official state sport since 1962?

Jousting in Maryland pits riders against small rings, which they spear with a lance at full speed, not against each other.

Which brand did Utah's Senate recognize in 2001 as a favorite snack food of Utah?

Jell-O won the honor after Utahns rallied to "Take Back the Title" when Des Moines, Iowa, out-ate them in 1999.

Which boundary, surveyed in the 1760s by two English astronomers, separates Pennsylvania from Maryland?

The Mason–Dixon line later became shorthand for the divide between Southern slave states and Northern free states.

Which narrow waterway, about 51 miles across, separates Alaska from the easternmost point of Asia?

The Bering Strait holds the two Diomede Islands, and in 1987 Lynne Cox swam between them in water of about 38 °F.

Which lake straddling California and Nevada is the largest alpine lake in North America?

Tahoe is 1,645 feet deep, which makes it the second-deepest lake in the country, and only the five Great Lakes hold more water.

Which river rises in Colorado, crosses New Mexico and then forms the border between Texas and Mexico?

The Rio Grande gives up so much water to farms and cities that only about a fifth of its flow has reached the sea since the mid-1900s.

Which river, fourth-largest in the United States by flow, forms most of the border between Washington and Oregon?

The Columbia pours more water into the eastern Pacific Ocean than any other river, after a journey that begins in Canada.

Which region of six northeastern states takes in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island?

New England got its name from English explorer John Smith in 1616, four years before the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower.

Which president signed the acts that made Alaska and Hawaii the 49th and 50th states?

Dwight D. Eisenhower signed Alaska's act in July 1958 and Hawaii's the following March, and the 50-star flag he ordered became official on July 4, 1960.

Which nickname did Tennessee reportedly earn for its soldiers' part in the War of 1812?

The Volunteer State label stuck for good in the Mexican–American War, when Tennessee was asked for 2,800 soldiers and more than 30,000 came forward.

Which unofficial nickname of Missouri did Congressman Willard Vandiver help popularize in a speech?

The Show-Me State comes from the saying "I'm from Missouri, you'll have to show me"; Vandiver declared that frothy eloquence neither convinced nor satisfied him.

Which nickname has Pennsylvania carried since 1802 for its central place among the original colonies?

The Keystone State borrows a builder's term: a keystone is the wedge at the top of an arch that locks all the other stones into position.

Which nickname did North Carolina earn from its pine forests' output of pitch and turpentine?

The Tar Heel State label began with the poor laborers who made tar and pitch, and it is now the nickname of University of North Carolina teams.

Which nickname did Nevada earn after the Comstock Lode strike of 1859 set off a population boom?

The Silver State owes its existence to the ore: the Comstock boom was the spur for carving Nevada Territory out of Utah Territory in 1861.

Which nickname does Ohio take from its official tree, whose nut inspired a peanut-butter candy?

The Buckeye State is named for the Ohio buckeye, whose name is said to stem from Native Americans calling the nut "hetuck", meaning buck eye.

Which nickname appears on New Mexico license plates, having replaced an earlier one about its sunshine?

The Land of Enchantment took over from the Land of Sunshine, an earlier nickname that boasted of how much sun New Mexico gets.

Which one-word motto sits above a gold miner at work on California's state seal?

Eureka is Greek for "I have found it", an exclamation attributed to the ancient mathematician Archimedes.

Which songbird is the official bird of seven states, from Illinois to Virginia, more than any other species?

The northern cardinal was first adopted by Kentucky in 1926, and the western meadowlark is the runner-up with six states.

Which bird appears with her young on Louisiana's flag and is the official Louisiana bird?

The brown pelican was hit so hard by pesticides such as DDT that it spent 1970 to 2009 on the federal endangered species list.

Which Hudson River city, chartered in 1686, serves as the capital of New York?

Albany stands on the Hudson's west bank, about ten miles south of the point where the Mohawk River flows in.

Which capital of Texas bills itself as the Live Music Capital of the World?

Austin was briefly incorporated as Waterloo in 1839, when the site was chosen to replace Houston as capital of the Republic of Texas.

Which Tennessee capital, a center of the country music industry, is commonly called Music City?

Nashville fell in 1862, the first state capital in the Confederacy to be taken by Union forces.

Which Arizona city, a capital since territorial days, is the most populous state capital in the United States?

Phoenix had over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, which also made it the fifth-most populous city in the United States.

Which Louisiana capital did French explorers name for a boundary marker between two tribes' hunting grounds?

Baton Rouge is French for "red stick", after a red pole the explorers saw; it took over from New Orleans as capital after an 1846 vote of the legislature.

Which small city on the Kentucky River, not Louisville or Lexington, is the capital of Kentucky?

Frankfort had just 28,602 residents at the 2020 census, which made it only the 13th-largest city in Kentucky.

Which Maryland capital sits beside the US Naval Academy, which was established there in 1845?

Annapolis was the temporary national capital in 1783–1784, when the Confederation Congress met in the city.

Which city at the head of Cook Inlet holds nearly 40 percent of Alaska's population?

Anchorage is Alaska's most populous city, yet less than 10 percent of the sprawling municipality's land is actually populated.

Which Michigan city, the birthplace of Motown music, takes its name from the French word for strait?

Detroit grew up on a narrow river linking two lakes, which the French called le détroit du Lac Érié, the strait of Lake Erie.

Which Florida city, founded in 1565, is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the lower 48?

St. Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565, by admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who became Florida's first governor.

Which former mission in San Antonio fell to Santa Anna's army in 1836 after a 13-day siege?

The Alamo was defended by about two hundred Texians, among them co-commanders James Bowie and William B. Travis.

Which dormant Hawaiian volcano is the world's tallest mountain when measured from its underwater base?

Mauna Kea rises farther from its underwater base than Everest stands above sea level, and it last erupted at least 4,000 years ago.

Which East Coast peninsula takes its name from the three states that share its land?

Delmarva is a clipped compound of Delaware, Maryland and Va., modeled on Delmar, a border town named in the same way.

Which 1848 treaty ended the Mexican–American War and brought California, Nevada and Utah into the United States?

Guadalupe Hidalgo required Mexico to cede 55 percent of its territory, land that also became most of Arizona and parts of three more states.

Which Alaskan island chain crosses longitude 180°, holding both the westernmost and easternmost points of the US?

The Aleutian Islands reach so far west that Semisopochnoi Island lies past the 180° line, which makes it the easternmost US point by longitude.

Which rock formed New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain, the cliff profile that collapsed in May 2003?

Granite ledges, five of them, made up the face on Cannon Mountain, which a surveying team first recorded around 1805.

Which small lake in north-central Minnesota is the headwater of the Mississippi River?

Itasca is a name coined by Henry Schoolcraft from the Latin words veritas caput, intended to mean "true head" of the river.

Which river gorge on the Idaho–Oregon border is the deepest in North America at nearly 8,000 feet?

Hells Canyon was carved by the Snake River and runs deeper than the far more famous Grand Canyon.

Which chunk of Minnesota is the only place in the contiguous United States north of the 49th parallel?

The Northwest Angle exists because border negotiators relied on a map that showed Lake of the Woods as a rough oval.

Which lake on the New York–Vermont border is sometimes referred to as the Sixth Great Lake?

Champlain earns the title from its links to the St. Lawrence Seaway by the Richelieu River and to the Hudson River by canal.